Like a Quilt
by raybun
Summary: Unrelated things that, when put together, fall into some form of unity. 100 theme challenge. AkuRoku.
1. Want

**A/N: **Alrighty, then, this is the 100 theme challenge I've set up for myself. There is some important information for you to know if you'd like to follow this ridiculousness.

**1.)** This idea isn't mine (obviously) but I did think of the 100 themes myself. **2.)** The themes are little couplets that are opposites. **3.)** The one shots for each theme are not connected. **4.)** Most will be AkuRoku unless suggested to do another pairing. **5.)** The perspectives switch off each chapter, though I tend to float back and forth. I'm bad at that. **6.)** The entries will all be varying lengths since I'm not using a time restriction or anything. **7.)** I'm putting these things up already on my tumblr so that will probs be ahead of this one. **8.)** I'll update this erry couple of days or something. Maybe Mondays and Fridays.

Alright, now that that's out of the way, I'm gonna list all the themes I'll be doing in case you want to do it yourself or you're just curious or w/e. The first entry will follow the list of themes, so feel free to skip over the themes since it'll probs take up a lot of room to list them all because they will stretch the page.

1. Want

2. Need

3. Near

4. Far

5. Clarity

6. Ambiguity

7. Hunger

8. Fullness

9. Stars

10. Planets

11. Bought

12. Sold

13. Water

14. Fire

15. Freedom

16. Captivity

17. Miracle

18. Tragedy

19. Ocean

20. Land

21. Kindness

22. Malice

23. Vegetables

24. Sweets

25. Gold

26. Dirt

27. French

28. English

29. Yes

30. No

31. Rocks

32. Wind

33. Chaos

34. Order

35. This

36. That

37. Happiness

38. Sadness

39. Left

40. Right

41. Obedience

42. Disobedience

43. Rain

44. Sunshine

45. Here

46. There

47. Sky

49. Rich

50. Poor

51. Violence

52. Peace

53. Heart

54. Brain

55. Vampires

56. Werewolves

57. Send

58. Receive

59. Excitement

60. Boredom

61. Hopeful

62. Hopeless

63. Beautiful

64. Ugly

65. Shame

66. Pride

67. Logic

68. Unreasonableness

69. Leaving

70. Returning

71. Private

72. Public

73. Winter

74. Summer

75. Spots

76. Stripes

77. Carefree

78. Careful

79. Charming

80. Despicable

81. Give

82. Take

83. Sanity

84. Madness

85. Love

86. Hate

87. Active

88. Lazy

89. Day

90. Night

91. Bravery

92. Fear

93. Dogs

94. Cats

95. Stingy

96. Generous

97. Light

98. Dark

99. O's

100. X's

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><p><strong>I. Want<strong>

"I want it…" the redhead mumbled with his face pressed up against the window. His breath fogged up the glass, obscuring his view. "I _want_ it…" he repeated in a whinier, more urgent tone.

Roxas quirked an eyebrow as he, too, looked through the window. Only one thing sat proudly on display in the window, and it wasn't something Axel would ever want: a skateboard. Axel simply couldn't skateboard; his height hindered his balance, and his balance was nothing to right home about to begin with. The blond wondered for a moment if the skateboard obscured something in the store behind it. Just to be sure, Roxas asked, "What?"

Axel looked at him for a moment, making a face of disapproval. "The skateboard!" he gesticulated hastily to the window. "Isn't it nice?"

Instead of responding right away, the blond took a moment to examine the board. The beautiful art on the bottom of the board proudly expressed the high-quality of the brand, the grip tape sat perfectly placed on top of it, the pristine white wheels shone in the light, practically begging to be scraped up and dirtied. Roxas had to admit, it _was_ a nice skateboard. Honestly, Roxas had been looking for a nice board for a few months, seeing as Axel broke his last one in a fit of rage. "Yeah, but I don't know why _you_ would want it. You can't even ride a skateboard without breaking any bones."

Indignant, the redhead huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, but _you_ can!" His eyes never left the board. For a moment, his gaze strayed to his jean pocket. Abruptly, he made to open the door. "You know what, wait here, I'm gonna go buy it," he said as he disappeared inside the skate shop.

Rolling his eyes, Roxas sighed and sat on the fountain just across from the skate shop's door. He gazed around at the other stores in this little plaza of shops. Being Sunday evening, emptiness filled the shopping center, which pleased the blond. He regarded his two shopping bags, which sat on his right side, and then glanced at his watch. Honestly, he couldn't see why Axel would waste their precious time over a skateboard he would never be able to ride. They had to be back home before the city's curfew kicked in; not that the blond was a goody-two shoes, he just didn't like being interrogated by cops about what he and Axel were up to. Even though they'd already been in the plaza for a while, Roxas wanted to hit all the stores he'd originally set out to visit but hadn't gotten to yet.

With a moderately loud ringing, Roxas' eyes snapped to the skate shop's door in an instant. He rolled his eyes once more when he saw that Axel had finished making his purchase, now carrying it in a big, white shopping bag with the shop's logo and website printed on the side. The callous grin on his face made Roxas want to gag.

"Are you happy now?" Roxas demanded as he quickly stood and collected his things. Without letting Axel respond, he continued on. "Come on, ass wipe, I wanna look in a few more stores and curfew's like an hour away." He turned to continue walking on down the sidewalk.

"Jeez, Rox, you need to calm your tits for a second!" Axel barked out with a laugh. He grabbed onto his companion's arm and roughly yanked him backwards into himself so that they were chest to chest. Quickly, he leaned down to nuzzle his face against Roxas's neck. "It's always go, go, go with you," he murmured into the blond's hear. "Why not just rest a moment? The stores will be here tomorrow and the next day after that and next weekend and probably even a year from now. But this moment won't be." He pulled away from the blond so that he could lock eyes with him. "Come on, let's just relax and enjoy the moment and not get all pissy. Alright?"

Roxas scoffed, but slumped back down into the fountain. He sighed and closed his eyes a moment. When Axel didn't sit down next to him for a few seconds, his eyes blinked open to behold the scene before him: Axel down on one knee with the shopping bag from the skate shop pulled against his chest. "Axel…?" he trailed off, a blush creeping up his cheeks.

"Roxas, my baby bunny, I just wanted to formally apologize for breaking your last skateboard." The redhead bowed his head during this pause and offered out the bag. "Please accept this bag and promise to love me forever and ever."

Again, Roxas rolled his eyes, but he smiled this time and accepted the bag, taking it from Axel. Instead of letting go, however, Axel leaned in with the bag and planted a kiss on his "baby bunny's" lips. Brusquely, Roxas pushed the redhead, stood up, gathered his bags, grabbed Axel by the shirt, began walking towards the parking lot.

"Wah, wah, Roxas!" Axel yelped as he was dragged along. "What is it now? What do you want?"

"You," the blond replied with a smirk.


	2. Need

**A/N: ** Theme numéro deux! I have no idea why there are so many scientific terms in this piece, it just happened. Maybe it'll learn ya something. Also, FYI, this is like the story of me and my best friend, except I'm Roxas and there was no happy ending for me /lolsob

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><p><strong>II. Need<strong>

Axel stared at his feet, watching the sky's tears drip from his white shoes. They dripped slowly, one every 30 seconds. The rest, the survivors, clung to the creases in his shoes, struggling for stability and companionship. Water stuck together as a unit and could hold together so long as the force of gravity didn't tear them apart, and Axel admired that about water. He named the droplets as best he could, having nothing better o do. The only alternative was thinking about how his teeth chattered in the cold, such cold that he could feel his spine.

It was far too easy to feel sorry for himself, and he didn't want to feel that way. But he couldn't help but think about how pathetic he must've looked sitting alone in the rain on the steps of a locked apartment building. He couldn't help but think about his wet hair flattened against his neck, shoulders, and back, chilling them. He couldn't help but think about his thoroughly soaked boxers. He tried not to think all these 'woe is me' thoughts, so he thought about the little droplets on his shoes instead.

The night made everything more secretive and solitary. It called through the empty streets and hid behind the dreamy stars that Axel couldn't even see through the stormy clouds. The night enveloped the city. The rain spoke over the night, embarrassing it, shaming it. The rain fell like lead bullets, heavy and stinging and loud against the buildings and signs and sidewalks, deafening in Axel's ears.

A sudden clicking behind him made Axel turn to see who was coming out of the big, glass doors of the complex. It didn't surprise the redhead that it was a pretty boy with ocean eyes and golden hair. His pretty face held no expression, but Axel felt the disapproval oozing from the boy's skin anyway. It was funny how Axel could feel the stupid little judgments Roxas made about him without even a frown on his face.

"Axel," Roxas breathed. In that breath, his vulnerability spilled out all over the pavement like vomit. His bitchy, angry, hard exterior chipped open in that one breath and the redhead could see how he truly felt. His worry filled the air in the rush of breath and fear strayed about his mouth like spit.

The only response he received was the flicker of decayed green eyes. After years, the acidity and radioactivity of his greens decayed into a less reactive, more stable isotope. The decadent green eyes flitted to the ground and back up at Roxas, expressing his lack of understanding in the situation, the brokenness of his demeanor, the shame of winding up here on the steps of Roxas's apartment building.

"You need to come inside or else you'll get sick," Roxas said, nagging without even changing his tone.

Axel grinned in spite of himself. "Nah, I don't _need_ to. I won't die like this. That thing about people needing—"

"Then why the fuck did you come here if you weren't gonna come in?" Roxas interrupted.

No response for a moment. Axel grinned again. "That thing about people needing shelter is complete bullshit!"

Another silence. Roxas was seething as he turned around and began to walk down the hall of the complex, letting the door slowly begin to close behind him. It was bait, of course, and Axel, desperate and needy as he was, took it greedily. He jumped to his feet and managed to slip through the door before it auto-locked him outside. From there, Axel followed silently, pathetically, behind the blond. A long awkward silence later, they had reached the blond's suite.

They entered the apartment along with the shadows of shame and anger. Feelings climbed the walls of the apartment, clinging to them and waiting for the opportune moment to strike. Right now, it was all about the mounting pressure as time passed, all about the waiting game, all about reaching that point where everything would inevitable crash down. But Axel was an expert at stalling. He could never go straight into the issue, he just wasn't a straight shooter and he never had been. He absolutely hated confrontation or any sort of emotionally-charged situation. Especially when he knew it had been coming.

Roxas opened his mouth to speak, but closed it without saying anything. He and Axel just fidgeted in front of the closed door. Seeming to make up his mind, he stalked over to the dinky kitchen and began opening cabinets and drawers, removing certain items. "Sit down." The redhead wouldn't dare disobey and sat at the counter diagonal to the sink. Within minutes, the kettle whistled on the stove and the microwave beeped, signaling the ready state of the Pizza Rolls the blond had put in.

"See now food and drink, that's a necessity. Shelter totally isn't. I could eat Pizza Rolls all day, but I couldn't stand being inside a shelter all day. You could've just as easily left me outside in the rain and I would've been perfectly fine."

"And now I'm wondering why I even let you inside in the first place," Roxas snapped before the redhead could say anything more. The blond had a knack for seeing through Axel's bullshit. He didn't like how the redhead beat around the bush like some stupid high-schooler trying to ask his crush to prom. Nothing got under his skin like Axel's foul habits and yet, he couldn't afford to turn away the redhead. They were fucking oxidation and reduction; complete opposites, but happening at the same time. They were on the same wavelength, though Axel would always swear to being more an infrared while Roxas was ultraviolet.

None too gently, Roxas practically slammed the plate of Pizza Rolls down in front of Axel, which was quickly followed by a steaming mug with a teabag's string hanging from the top which was then followed up by a jar of sugar and a bottle of honey. Axel liked calling the string the bright new technology in the tea bagging world, and that made Roxas boil over in the deep pit of his rage. He hated all of Axel's stupid jokes. Axel only joked and said stupid things when he couldn't be himself. He hid behind grins and smiles and that pissed Roxas off more than anything else in the world. It was twice as bad when the redhead couldn't be himself around even _Roxas_.

In life, Roxas only had one person mean so much to him and enrage him just as much and that was Axel. If the one person Roxas trusted his very _being_ with couldn't just sit there with a fucking frown on his face, if he _needed_ all his goddamn covers, smoke, mirrors, makeup, glitter, fluff, utter _bullshit_ to exist around Roxas, then the blond rather he not exist at all. But Axel never changed and neither did Roxas. Constantly, their heads and horns rammed together and got caught in a stalemate.

And then the glorious moment Roxas had been waiting for slowly began to happen. Axel took the food and drink. Slowly, but he took it nonetheless. That meant he would let down his barriers. If he had refused the food, it would've been after Roxas had already prepared it. Axel was like that. He took the time Roxas did preparing food to decide whether he would indulge the blond. Only after everything was ready for him would he refuse or accept it. That enraged Roxas, too. Not only would Axel hide away from his problems, he would also make the blond throw away all the food he'd just made.

Slowly, Axel took a Pizza Roll. Without care for burning his mouth, he inserted it into his mouth. His rigid posture made the scene almost hilarious. Methodically, under Roxas's studying gaze, the redhead picked up the spoon Roxas had laid out on the counter for him, dipped it into the mug of tea to press down on the tea bag to help it steep faster, deemed that it had been steeped long enough, removed the teabag, set it on the napkin acting as a coaster, stirred the tea a little bit, poured in a little sugar and some honey, stirred some more and then took a sip.

Axel set down the mug and took another Pizza Roll. A tear trailed down from his eye to his cheek where it stopped. Another tear fell soon after. Another Pizza Roll, another tear. The tears multiplied and he began to breathe in a strange pattern soon after. Even when the tea and the Pizza Rolls were gone, the tears continued to fall. The feelings dove off the wall at this point and the anguish Roxas had been feeling subsided and empathy gathered hold of him instead.

The blond cleaned up the redhead's mess and then sat next to him at the counter. The moment his arm touched Axel's back, the redhead turned and buried his face in the blond's shoulder. Sobs made his body spasm occasionally and Roxas just held on, tethering him to Earth just like they'd done for each other since they were young.

"Come on," Roxas's voice slipped between Axel's sobs and the rain against the window, "let's get to bed. I'll give you what you need." After a moment of consideration and stillness, he added, "just the way no one else will." He couldn't beg for Axel's love the way he wanted to. In this twisted life, he could never ask that of the redhead. If he came right out to say it… He just, he couldn't. He couldn't. Axel wouldn't love him, not the way he wanted. They'd already tried and it hadn't worked out. It never had. He didn't know what he would do if he said something and Axel rejected him. If Axel said he didn't care. He couldn't take that.

And so they made love. Or at least, Roxas always told himself they did. They fucked, that's what Axel always said, and that was the reality of the situation. So there they lay, wide awake and dead tired in Roxas' worn out, soiled bed, gazing at each other in listless apathy. There was no cuddling, but that had been the same since the beginning.

Tears rolled freely down Roxas's cheeks, but that had been happening since the beginning, too. Axel thought Roxas cried because of sex, he didn't know the blond cried because of sex with him specifically. He didn't know how broken the blond's heart was.

"You know how," he sniffled, "how you said that shelter… isn't a necessity like food and… water?"

Axel couldn't be bothered to speak, but his eyes glistened in response.

"Well, you're wrong." Roxas took the sheets of his bed and covered his face. Like Axel, he handled emotional situations poorly. He needed something to cover himself so his honesty wasn't so bold. "If you didn't need shelter… you would never come here." Roxas's voice got lost in the lump of his throat for a second as his crying got worse. His tightened airway made it hard to breathe and he sobbed and sobbed before continuing. "And I… Well, I wouldn't… I wouldn't be here… if… if I… if I didn't…" He broke down to sob some more and Axel's eyes grew worried. He'd never cried so much after sex before.

"Rox…?" he asked.

The blond barked out a cold laugh in complete self-hatred. So weak. So brittle. So _spineless_. "I wouldn't be here… if I didn't need… love… and… and… and… I just… I can't… I need love… and I know… I know I can't have it."

At this point, Axel had propped himself up on his elbow and was gazing down at the blond. He tried to meet the smaller boy's eyes, but it was impossible. Roxas wouldn't look up, wouldn't even attempt to look at his face. He kept his gaze low, on the bed, eyes almost closed. That meant Roxas was speaking about things he hadn't said in years. Roxas's honesty wasn't honesty at all. Axel hadn't seen his "honesty" in years, since the last time the blond couldn't look at him. The walls were never so intangible. They were never _not there_.

"Of course you can have it," Axel assured him. "Why can't you have it?"

Another bitter laugh. "Because… you don't love me…" He had to say it. He _had_ to.

And the demons returned to their lovely picnic of honesty. They made it quiet for so long and had Roxas thinking of ways he could attempt suicide that looked like accidents.

"You know," Axel began after taking a deep breath. "Ventus dumped me today." His mouth didn't twitch into a smile. His honesty broke through the demons' spell.

The pit in Roxas' stomach grew exponentially. He didn't want to hear about Axel's exes. He didn't want to hear about his beloved's relationships. He didn't want to hear about how they never worked out or about how great they were going or whatever the case was. He began to turn over in bed so that he could stare out the window of his apartment instead of at Axel.

The redhead didn't make him turn around. Instead, he began spooning the blond. "I dated him for a while and I thought we were getting somewhere… you know about that. But then… he started saying that whenever we're together, it's like I see a different person. Like I'm not talking to him, but to someone else. Someone who isn't him. Someone who isn't even there." Axel sniffled and Roxas knew he was crying again. "And I just sat there and thought about it for a while after he dumped me. And I realized that I only ever dated him because I needed the love of a beautiful boy with sapphire eyes and wheaty-wheat hair. And it had to be styled a certain way, and he had to have an affinity for black and white clothing, especially checkerboard patterns. And he had to be the most wonderful, bitchy person under the sun. He was wonderful, but not bitchy. And he had the colors, but he didn't have the checkerboard. And he was always far too happy. He always wanted to meet people and make friends and go out and _do_ things."

Roxas's heart raced. Air ripped through his system like band-aids.

"And I need someone antisocial and mean and fucking _lazy_. I need the love of someone way out of my league… And it wasn't Ventus. He wasn't even in the same sport, and I was fucking stupid to even start anything with him. And well, I came over here to see this beautiful blond god who is way out of my league to fuck him ten feet into his mattress in the hopes that somehow I could make him as shitty and dirty as a sleazebag like me. And maybe somehow, if I could mark him, I could make him mine even without the deed to the property. I needed to at least feel his skin under mine."

Before he could continue, Roxas had turned back around and had his eyes full of renewed acid green eyes. He had one of his cheeks filled with Axel's nose pressed against it. He had his lips full of the redhead's lips. He pulled away after a minute and found himself trapped in his lover's arms. "You never said anything about this before."

"Neither did you."

"Fair enough."

And they satisfied each other like an ionic bond. Needing to both give and take negativity in order to reach a better, more excited state.


	3. Near

**A/N: **I don't particularly like this one very much... For a theme that could have so much in it, I really didn't know what to write about =o Soo, I managed to spit this out.

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><p><strong>III. Near<strong>

It all started years ago at a small playground in the middle of a grassy park. The sun shone brightly down on the world, heating the earth with its warming rays. Throughout the skies, fluffy clouds floated about. Birds chirped, bees buzzed, and the earth was lively and bright.

Unfortunately, not everything was nice and happy. In this park, no children played. It was Monday and all the children were shut up in classrooms; all except one child who had broken the social norm. He sat on one of the swings sadly in his solitude. The other children didn't like him much and they'd stolen his food and toys and broken his pencils and crayons. They didn't want him around and he was only too happy to oblige them. At seven years old, he would've done anything for acceptance, even if that meant not talking to anyone.

Cerulean eyes already cried out, the small blond boy sat there, slumped over and dejected on his swing. His plastic Catdog watch from Burger King told him it was noon, meaning he still had three hours until school ended and he could go home. He wondered if the teachers ever noticed his absence, but his parents had never mentioned anything about getting calls from the office about him being missing from school, so he figured they never did. That made everything worse. Not even his lovely teacher noticed him. If someone as angelic and kind as her could forget about him, then that proved everyone right; him being away was better for everyone.

The boy tried to console himself. He tried to tell himself that it wasn't all bad. His parents loved him very much and he loved them too. This whole thing with his classmates would blow over soon and they'd accept him as on of their own. He didn't know when, but he had faith that it would be very soon.

"Hey, you!" a loud voice called out, startling the blond boy. A redheaded boy around the same age quickly approached the swing and glanced him over. "What's your name, kid?" he asked. He seemed to accept the blond boy with the way he sat down on the swing right next to him as if he did it every day.

Adrenaline coursed through the blond's veins and he quickly grew excited. _Someone_ accepted him. "My name is Roxas…" he said more shyly than he'd wanted. He was wary of this strange boy. He only accepted Roxas because he didn't know him yet.

"Well, why d'ya look so sad, Roxas? Did somebody hurt you?" the redhead boy wondered, tilting his head to the side much like a dog.

Roxas shook his head. "No."

"Then why ain't ya in school? Dad always said not being in school'll make you stupid," he explained.

"Nobody at school likes me. They only like me when I'm not there, so I can't go. And you're not in school either!" The blond pointed out.

The boy grinned the most interesting grin Roxas had ever seen. "Yeah, but it's too late for me, I'm already stupid! And you shouldn't care what they think. They don't know what they're talkin' about. You seem A-okay to me, Roxy. They prolly wish they had nice blue eyes like you got. Nice and blue like the ocean."

Not knowing how to take the compliment, Roxas blushed and hung his head low between his shoulders. "Thank you…"

"You're mighty pretty, too. Just like a girl! Your face even turns red like theirs do! Girls are nice and you're like a girl, so you must be nice too. And if other people can't see how nice and pretty you are, then they're just weenies!" The redheaded boy sudden seemed to remember something and he shot up from the swing to stand in front of Roxas. "Ah, I forgot to tell ya my name! I'm Axel. I just moved here an' imagine my luck meetin' a princess the first day!"

The blush never left Roxas's face, but he smiled shyly up at Axel and nodded with a hum. Abruptly, his hand was taken from him, but instead of shaking like the blond expected him to, Axel simply held his hand in both of his.

"I promise that so long as I'm near, you'll be safe, okay, Roxy? An' you'll be my princess an' I'll be your prince. Deal?"

Roxas giggled and nodded even though he wanted to say he couldn't be a princess because he was a boy. He didn't want to drive Axel away. He was the saving grace he'd needed without even knowing it.

* * *

><p>"Ah, I love remembering that day," Axel sighed dreamily. He had a picture of himself and Roxas as elementary school students in his hand. "Don't you, baby?" he wondered, brushing his beloved down his side with his free hand.<p>

Roxas purred. "Of course I do. It's always cute and sappy and I love it." The couple was currently in bed, the only piece of complete furniture in the room. Boxes occupied the rest of the space, stacked on top of each other and unopened. Roxas and Axel cuddled under the covers of their new bed, the mattress still at its most comfortable, being its first use.

"Well, my princess, I've kept my promise. I'm still your prince in shining armor and now that we're moving in together, I can better protect you from the ills of the world. Are you excited? Because you should be. Because I'll always be near you, cutie." Axel gazed deeply into his lover's eyes, searching the blue oceans the way he had countless times before over their many years of friendship. They'd been dating since senior year in high school and roughly five years had passed since then. Now they had the fortune of renting their first apartment together just after college.

The blond smiled and buried his face in the crook of his boyfriend's neck. He couldn't have cuddled any closer to the redhead no matter how had he tried, but still, he wanted to. His arms were around his beloved, holding onto him for his warmth and the comfort his very presence brought about. "You know, when I think about the past, though, I always think of bad memories. Actually, I don't think I ever told you about all the bad things that happened to me while were still in elementary and middle school."

"What? What do you mean by 'bad things'?" the redhead wondered, sounding concerned. He titled the blond's head upwards so that he could look into his eyes some more.

Roxas sighed. "Well, I guess it's childish, but I never told you this stuff before because I didn't want to make you feel bad about not being able to protect me. That said, I won't go into detail, I'll just say that people never left me alone. I got bullied all the time when you weren't around." The blond saw Axel's troubled look, so he quickly added, "But it's not all bad, because whenever you were near, nobody would dare touch me. So now I've grown to appreciate it when you're near me even more. Whenever you're gone, I get antsy and anxious. When you're near, I feel comfortable and protected."

That put a smile on Axel's face. "Well, it sounds like the bullying's over by now. Actually, it'd be pretty weird for someone to bully you now that we're older. But anyway, I'm glad you feel comfortable when I'm near. I love you, cutie patootie." He then proceeded to kiss his lover's pink lips.

"Love you, too, sugar bear," Roxas replied and then kissed him again.

"And I'll always be near you to protect you if you ever need it."

The blond chuckled. "I know."


	4. Far

**IV. Far**

"I miss you…" Axel murmured in the dark. His voice lulled into a whisper because he'd be croaking if he spoke any louder. He lie alone in the queen-sized bed in his empty, but messy room. The room, the entire house, small as it was, had been designed for two people, and the redhead had bought it for that reason, but currently, only one person lived there. The clock, Axel noticed, read 1:22AM

A sigh traveled through the line and into the redhead's ear. "I know. I miss you, too." A sad smile played in the voice. "I wish you could be here you with me. You're so far away…"

Axel smiled tiredly at the voice. "I know, Rox, me too. I miss holding you, kissing you, even seeing you. You know, today I saw this kid with blond, spiky hair and I thought it was you at first. I thought I was going crazy for a second. Maybe I am. I just don't see why you had to choose something that you had to go so far away to study… I need you here."

"Come on, Ax, don't do this to me," Roxas begged in a sigh. "You know how much this means to me, and if I could go somewhere closer, you know I would in a heartbeat. But Radiant Garden has the best engineering facilities in the world and I can't pass up this opportunity. Don't make me feel guilty about it…"

"I know, baby, I just can't help it. I miss you too much. Why do you have to be so brilliant? I just don't understand it," the redhead whined.

Roxas chuckled on the other end. "Yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, how are things at home? Wait, actually, am I keeping you awake?"

The redhead shrugged even though the blond couldn't see it. "Nah, it's cool. I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. And to answer your question, things are going well, I guess. I've been working more lately and I never thought I would say this, but I joined a rugby team. Basically, I'm doing everything I can to keep busy."

Roxas's laughter twinkled over the phone, making Axel's face flush a light shade of pink. He really missed hearing his boyfriend's laughter. It made him feel like nothing else in the world did. "I can't believe it, but I can actually picture running down a rugby field in your spanx and short shorts. Text me some pictures or something. You gotta be all in shape now, so I must see your beautiful muscles and short shorts."

In response, Axel laughed and sat up in bed. Words could not describe how much he loved his little blond. "Yeah, I have all these muscles in places I didn't even know muscles went. I'm lookin' pretty sexy, so you should hurry up and finish up all your credits and come home so we can fuck. I miss your moans and that cute little face you always make when I put it in for the first time in a while."

Another laugh escaped the speaker of the phone and Axel flushed pink once again. "Yeah, I miss sexy time with you, too. I miss that tongue thing you do when you give me head and how you always motorboat my tummy. I always thought that was adorable," the blond's voice admitted. Sounds suddenly came from the background and Roxas seemed to leave the phone for a moment to reply to someone. Time was pretty much up. "Hey, Ax, I gotta get going."

"Okay," the redhead replied, his throat suddenly thick. He hated how choked up he got whenever he had to hang up and close off the connection between him and his beloved. Still, he could never avoid it no matter how hard he tried. This distance was killing him.

"Axel… I love you. Even though we're so far apart, I want you to know that I love you with every fiber of my being and this distance doesn't mean anything. I'll go home eventually and we'll live happily ever after like we've always wanted. I just hope you'll wait for me."

Axel chuckled bitterly. "Couldn't give you up even if I wanted to. I love you, too, Rox." He paused to wipe at a tear that was beginning to form in his eye. "You should get going, though. Don't want to miss out on all your exciting lessons for today."

"Yeah." A silent pause followed. "I love you, Axel. Bye."

"I love you too. Bye." And then the line went dead and Axel's cell phone announced that the call had ended. And then tears rolled down his face the way they had been for the past month or so. And then he curled up alone in his big bed. And then he fell asleep alone like he'd been doing for the past year and would continue to do for the next year and a half.


	5. Clarity

**V. Clarity**

Roxas knew it was coming. He had hidden his shoes so that they no longer sat in the entryway and picked up all his clothes and possessions from the rest of the house and tidied his shared room and washed all the dirty dishes and swept and mopped and vacuumed. All this in preparation. And hiding under the kitchen sink soon became unbearable, so he hid under the bed for a while, and then in a closet, and then at the bottom of the laundry chute.

None of these places satisfied his instinct to hide. Roxas didn't really want to hide. In fact, he really wanted to run, instead, and never look back. But he couldn't run, either. Even though he wanted to, running would make everything worse because he'd wind up coming back eventually. So he hid against his animalistic urges. Fight or flight and he was definitely a flyer. But he promised himself he'd tough it out. He decided to hide under the bed again. It put his mind at ease the most.

Just when he got into position under the wooden frame, the door of the house slammed open. A vicious cry of fire and lava followed in the form of the very simple word, "Roxas!" Instantly, Roxas's blood ran cold like ice in his veins and the deep-seated fear and excitement frenzied his breathing. He made no attempt to move, and even if he had wanted to, Roxas doubted his capability of moving anyway. He trembled in the darkness under the bed.

"Roxas, where the fuck are you? I know you're here, goddamn it!" The voice shook the house and made something fall in the hallway, but Roxas had no idea what it could've been. "_Roxas_!" the voice shrieked and it was like a wicked game of hide and seek that Roxas _loved_. "Get your ass out here and face me like a man."

Sounds of rage and things being destroyed and flipped over filled the air and drew nearer and nearer. In his heart of hearts, Roxas knew that Axel knew exactly where he was. The redhead certainly wasted no time dropping to his hands and knees and peering into Roxas's darkened hiding place. A snort sounded and Roxas knew he'd been found. Large, angry hands gripped his ankles and pulled him out from under the bed.

Once free from the bed, Roxas immediately got onto his stomach to protect his sensitive areas. Unfortunately, Axel's boot collided with his side and kicked him over onto his back again. Pure rage filled the atmosphere, painting the walls red.

"You'd better fucking grovel, you bitch!" Axel screamed.

Without even a second thought, Roxas flipped over onto his hands and knees and began kissing the redhead's boots. "Please, Axel… Please…" he managed to whimper through trembling lips between kisses. A sharp pain made the boy cry out as his blond locks were yanked to lift the boy to his feet.

The redhead spit on his face, moving his grip from Roxas's hair to the collar of his shirt. "Why should I listen to a piece of shit like you?" he demanded through gnashing teeth and pursed lips. He forced the blond to his knees. "Suck my cock," he ordered, pressing his crotch against Roxas's face.

Excitement rattled through Roxas's bones like a freight train. He loved every aspect of this; the fear, the anger, the passion. He knew why Axel was so furious, but he misunderstood the situation. The blond refused to clarify what had happened until after this little activity. It excited him too much to stop his enraged lover. Of course, Roxas hadn't caused this intentionally, but he was certainly enjoying the effects.

"Yes, master," the blond replied through his cracked lips. He gazed into the redhead's caustic green eyes and relished in the rage burning there and his skin tingled. He nuzzled his nose against the redhead's crotch. A very noticeable erection had formed there. He tugged at the zipper of his lover's pants with his teeth and searched around inside the garment to attempt to remove the redhead's manhood with his tongue.

Axel groaned as his member sprang free from its confines. He allowed Roxas to lick it up and down and spit on it to better lubricate it but intervened with the blond took almost the full length into his mouth. He grabbed Roxas by the hair and forced the boy to bob up and down on it, going fast and far enough to gag the boy with every mouthful. He thrust into his lover's mouth to maximize friction and speed. "Yeah, you like my dick, don't you, you stupid bitch?" He cursed and insulted his willing victim all the while. "Fucking take it, whore!"

And then suddenly, Roxas ended up on his back on their bed. Axel climbed on top of him, straddling him. The blond whimpered when the redhead began biting at his neck, leaving nasty red marks behind. "Axel… Fuck me, please…" Roxas moaned. His cheek lit on fire with pain, Axel having slapped him across the face.

"Fuck you, whore," he growled, but followed the blond's request anyway. He tore off his shirt as well as Roxas's clothes. Without and lube or condoms, Axel spread Roxas's legs right away and positioned himself. He plunged deep inside with his inadequately-lubricated member.

The squeeze, friction, and dryness fucking _hurt_, but Axel ignored it. He rammed his proud cock in and out of his small lover. The pain of their skin rubbing soon faded as Axel oozed pre-cum in the blond's ass and pleasure took over. The redhead growled and snarled as he fucked Roxas good and long. He forced the blond onto his hands and knees so that he could fuck him like the dog he was.

Roxas whimpered, whined, moaned and cried out as Axel practically tore up his insides. He felt Axel's passion more than any pain he caused. Passion borne out of intense love and possessiveness for _him_. It invigorated him and rocked him and his body both literally and figuratively. He called wordlessly as Axel mercilessly pounded away at him. "Ah, ah, A-a-axel!" he tried to call his lover's name, but stuttered due to the redhead not stopping for a single second. "Ah, f-fuck-ck! Oh, pl-lease!" he whined.

As quickly as everything started, it all ended. Axel came first, a hot mess inside of Roxas. Roxas came shortly after, a hot mess on their bed sheets. And they collapsed together, Axel pulling out immediately. The redhead instantly turned to face the other direction in bed, not wanting to see the blond's face.

It took the blond a moment to gather his thoughts and recover mentally from what had just happened. He breathed heavily in place for a few minutes before curling himself up into a little protective ball. His ass already hurt like hell, burning in a way it never really had. Axel had been absolutely _furious_ this time. He'd never been so angry before.

"You know you're fucking mine, right, dipshit?" Axel demanded without so much as glancing over his shoulder. He was still pissed.

"Axel, I think you might be confused," Roxas finally spoke out against the silence. His throat hurt, raw from screaming when Axel had screwed his daylights out. He slithered out of his ball and draped himself over the redhead's side, taking his lover's cheeks in his hands. He placed a sweet little kiss on Axel's confused face. "I never cheated on you, you know."

"Well, how am I supposed to believe you when everyone says it happened?" the redhead demanded, but his anger had begun to subside. He knew in his black heart that Roxas would never cheat on him. Perhaps that's why he'd snapped; he'd been so sure Roxas would never cheat on him that when he had heard it had happened, it ripped open a new level of rage for him.

Roxas hummed a silent little tune as he thought of how to best explain the situation. "Well, first of all, Saïx was the one to start the rumor, and he was the one _in_ the rumor. He absolutely _hates_ me for stealing _you_ away from him. So do you think I would ever sleep with him? He told Marluxia, first, so of course everyone _thinks_ I did. They all thought I did it out of spite for you or something because we had that argument that day. But no, I didn't sleep with him. And I never would."

Axel scoffed and finally accepted Roxas into his arms, cuddling the blond against his chest. "Well, why didn't you clarify earlier? I could've hurt you! And I broke some of our shit!"

"I kind of wanted to have angry sex," Roxas explained, kissing Axel's lips again before settling into the crook of his neck. "We haven't had such good sex in a long time."

The redhead let out a sigh. "Well, I'm tired. I love you. And I guess I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions. Love you."

"Love you, too." Roxas beamed, happy that everything worked out in the end. He liked clarity, but he also liked wildly passionate sex.


	6. Ambiguity

**VI. Ambiguity**

The days dragged on in a pregnant and mildly tragic stream of suckiness. High expectations meeting unfortunate reality tends to do that to people. It was like saving oodles and oodles of money for something you really wanted, and when you finally invest your money in that something, it isn't necessarily yours even though you put in the work and effort and pushed the money at it. The whole situation drained Axel and made him want to quit. But he'd already waited so long and put in so much effort, and he didn't want to waste it. At the same time, the awkwardness posed a formidable foe and the solution wasn't as easy as it seemed.

For years, Axel had pursued the most beautiful boy he'd ever met: Roxas. They'd been close friends since childhood, but the wooing hadn't begun until seventh grade. He gave the blond googly eyes and tried to be everything the boy could have ever wanted. He drew the boy pictures, gave him presents often, took care of him when he didn't feel well, hung out with him all the time, made lunch for him occasionally, drove him wherever he wanted, despite it being illegal since Axel had only had his license for a few months.

After all these things, Axel had to make sure Roxas knew that he liked him as more than a friend. So, finally after years of hardcore hinting and wooing, the redhead told the blond plainly that he loved him with all his heart. Roxas had looked uncertain hearing this. He nodded and said something along the lines of "Yeah, I kind of like you, too," but nothing significant changed.

Axel continued to do all the nice little things for Roxas that he'd always done, but Roxas never really responded. The only noticeable differences were Roxas began leaning against the redhead's shoulder when tired and at lunch mostly everyday, he napped using Axel's lap as a pillow instead of a textbook the way he normally did. Otherwise, absolutely nothing changed, and it terrified Axel.

This ambiguity broke Axel's heart and he didn't know if Roxas had sincerely meant his words about his feelings or if he was just trying to appease Axel in the smallest of ways. The confusion had taken place a few weeks ago, already a month. As the days oozed by, Axel grew more restless with the blond and his cryptic response. Finally, it got to be too much and the redhead needed answers. This anxiety ate away at him every day and he was sick of this shit.

The very next day after school, Axel was driving Roxas home, which happened daily. Instead of taking him home, however, Axel drove them into the deserted parking lot of a playground. Not a soul lingered at the park, being that the sun was already dipping down below the horizon. They usually spent an hour at the school's library after classes ended to work on homework and hang out and then later went out to eat something fattening with friends, so the clock read 5:30 as he pulled into the parking space of his choice.

"Axel, why are we here?" Roxas wondered, sounding thoroughly confused. He gazed at the redhead questioningly, big blue eyes shining in the light of the setting sun. His innocence almost made Axel gag. The blond acted as if he didn't know what kind of pain he put the redhead through on a daily basis.

"Roxas," Axel made sure to look the blond dead in the eyes. "You should know what this is about. I mean, Jesus Christ, haven't you noticed how… anxious I've been lately?" His heart jumped into his throat a he realized he was really having this conversation with the love of his life.

Roxas made a face and shrugged. "I don't know, I guess I noticed you've been quieter lately, but I didn't realize it was such a problem. What's up, Ax?"

In response to this, Axel laughed bitterly. "You're such a _good_ friend," he practically spat. "Don't even realize the absolute hell you're putting me through right now. Such a _fucking_ angel." His throat felt black with anger and absolute hatred towards this topic.

"Huh?" Roxas got worried now. "What the hell are you talking about? I've been as good a friend as I can be!"

"And that's the fucking problem right there!" Axel snorted. He tried to reel in some of the anger so that he could lay it out neatly for his confused friend. "About a month ago, I told you that I love you, Roxas—that I _love_ you—but you still treat me like just a friend even though you said you liked me too. And this ambiguity is eating me up and I can't take this shit anymore."

With an angry scoff, Roxas rolled his eyes. "Well what the fuck do you expect from me? Do you want me to be all lovey-dovey and hang off of you? Do you want me to hug and kiss you hello and goodbye and every second in between? Axel, I just, I fucking _tried_ to do things to show you I care. You know I'm not the kind of guy to swoon and fawn over things and you know I'm not very affectionate with anyone. I assumed if you love me so much, you'd realize that. Looks like this is what I get for assuming."

Axel's nostrils flared of their own accord and he was vey close to bursting. "What do you even _mean_? Whenever we go see a movie, you always want to see whatever romantic movie is playing and I know you have a growing collection of romance novels. You're such a fucking hopeless romantic! I do so much to make you happy and the most you've done is lean on me a little when you're tired."

"Look, Axel, maybe you don't believe me, but I honestly really like you. I think I might… you know… the 'L' word…" Redness covered every part of Roxas's face, all the way to the tips of his ears. His anger dissipated into sheepishness. "It's just that you do so much for me and I have no idea how to repay you… And I just don't know how to hug you or kiss you because I just feel… I don't know, I just feel silly." He had gone from 60 to 0 in less than five seconds.

Finally, some progress. Axel's anger diffused quickly as well. Neither of them wanted to be mad, but accusations and passionate emotions typically led to bad things and they barely missed the mark of completely screaming at each other. They were finally ready to deal with this. "Why would you feel silly? I've been beating myself up over this and it's because you just feel silly?" he questioned.

"Well," Roxas took a moment to swallow his nerves, "I just feel so silly even imagining myself standing in front of you with my lips puckered like an idiot. And hugging… Oh, gosh… I just…" Roxas trailed off, his face burning red. "Imagining your arms around me kind of, you know, excites me… down there? And I feel dumb for feeling like that." A long pause followed as Roxas gathered his thoughts. "And since I've been too scared to kiss you or hug you, it's not like much else could possibly change. We already hang out pretty much everyday, and when we're not together, we constantly text each other."

"So, can I take that to mean that we're boyfriends?" Axel wondered with a hopeful glimmer in his green eyes.

Roxas nodded slowly, flushing still. He smiled as the redhead gave the goofiest grin he'd seen in a while. "I'm sorry for being so shy… I'm just not used to the idea of physical contact. I mean, I _am_ a hopeless romantic, but you know I always try to avoid touching others and being touched by others. If you'd touched me or hugged me, I probably would've allowed it," he explained.

"Roxas, I love you," Axel replied. He swiftly took Roxas's chin between his thumb and index finger and then placed a sweet, little, chaste kiss on his pink lips. "I didn't know that you'd meant it when you said you liked me, so I was scared to try anything."

Roxas just hummed and nodded, his face matching that of Axel's hair.

"And I'm glad this ambiguity is gone." Axel smiled again as he kissed the blond several more times.

"Me too," the blond managed to say between kisses.

And thus, Axel finally got to enjoy the lover he'd been wooing for five years.


	7. Hunger

**A/N: **It's been a while since I updated this story. I actually have like fifty of these written out and like 30 of them are already up on my tumblr. I thought I ought to catch this one up a bit, so yeah. Hope you enjoy~

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><p><strong>VII. Hunger<strong>

Roxas sat on the couch, leaning against his beloved boyfriend. The couple watched TV mindlessly even though they'd seen the episode many times before. Neither of them minded, though, simply enjoying being listless together. Their hands rested against the cloth couch, fingers intertwined. The blond giggled when Axel kissed his temple and rubbed his side with his free hand.

"Roxas," the redhead murmured, instantly receiving the blond's full attention, "I'm hungry. Make me a sandwich."

The blond scoffed, but smiled. "No way, you ass, get it yourself. This is _your_ house anyway!" he pointed out.

"Well, you certainly have a point, but really, if you loved me, you wouldn't mind making a sandwich for me; and doesn't that take precedence over you being a guest?" he countered.

"Nope, you're just lazy. Now go make yourself a sandwich," Roxas replied. He shifted into a regular sitting position, no longer leaning against Axel. "You're a big boy, I believe in you."

At that point, Axel began whining. "_Nooo_! Roxas, I'm not a big boy! You need to feed me and love me and wash me and clean up my messes and walk me!" He buried his head into the blond's chest as he whined, wrapping his arms around the younger boy.

With a good-humored eye-rolling, Roxas stood up and took hold of Axel's hand. "Come on, you big baby, let's make sandwiches _together_," he suggested as he pulled the redhead to his feet.

"Yay, cooking with Roxy!" Axel cheered. He eagerly followed his lovely and patient boyfriend into the kitchen. There, he completely abandoned the sandwich idea, which frustrated Roxas. He refused to even touch the condiments.

"Axel! I thought you were hungry!" Roxas exclaimed, thoroughly irritated. He was standing in front of the refrigerator and had been asking what Axel wanted on his sandwich. Every time he had offered the redhead an ingredient idea, he simply shot it down.

"Well, I am, but maybe not for sandwiches," Axel replied with a cheeky grin on his face.

Being that Roxas was facing the fridge, he didn't notice the grin. "Well, then what do you want?" Brusquely, Axel spun the blond around so that they faced each other. Roxas's heart caught in his throat and he blushed at the sudden closeness of his beloved.

"You," Axel replied simply. He put a hand to Roxas's cheek and leaned over a little bit to press his lips fully against the blond's. He thoroughly kissed the boy until neither could breathe anymore and had to break apart.

Roxas beamed breathlessly up at his boyfriend, wonder making his eyes shine.

Axel glowed breathlessly down at his boyfriend, love making his eyes glimmer.

"I guess I was just hungry for you," the redhead admitted, making Roxas giggle.


	8. Fullness

**A/N:** I have so many of these written up xD I'm just slacking on uploading them. I'll start a steady schedule to add a new theme I've written about ever Friday starting today~ Enjoy~!

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><p><strong>VIII. Fullness<strong>

Just beyond the horizon, the sun dipped its toe, testing the water for a night-long swim. Brilliant oranges and passionate reds ripped across the sky between the Tang clouds. The sky bled in slow motion colors that reflected onto the beach and the water, painting the sea foam orange as well. Crashing waves on the beach and against far-away rocks echoed in the air with the screaming of seagulls and the slapping of feet against the wet sand.

The activity and fullness of the air made kids want ice cream and seashells to take home. The same fullness made their parents willing to fulfill their wishes because today happened to be that kind of day. No one could be turned down on this day or told no to. And no one fed into their petty problems. It just happened to be the kind of day you apologized for being in the way of the person who just cut you off on the freeway. It was the kind of day where even the most misanthropic of people cracked a smile at a group of laughing children.

As the sun made its descent, people began to pack up their things and leave the beach, ready to grill up meats and corn on their barbeques out in this wonderful twilight. People's celebrations of life continued on, though, just left the area slowly. And before anyone knew it, the sun had slipped beneath the surface of the water. When that happened, though, the people drank coffee and played games until bedtime. Well, except for two particular young boys.

They still lay on the beach, having no reason to leave. They didn't owe their time or their life to anyone. Not today, at least. The chains of responsibility, duty, and regard for how their families would feel about them being out late had been lifted, if only for this one night. Tonight was the night to disregard others in pursuit of happiness; if such a time ever existed.

Stars filled their eyes and the salty taste of sea spray filled their mouths. Their hair slowly dehydrated with the dried brine and sand trapped in their locks, but that didn't matter. A day of dehydration meant little to nothing to them. They had their whole lives ahead of them to worry about the condition of their hair, but days like these came by scarcely, maybe twice or thrice a lifetime if lucky.

Even in the night, the air held warmth, temperate breezes blowing by once in a while; not enough to blow sand in their faces, but enough so they could feel it. The stars had come out to play with the moon in their eternal dance, forever moving and twirling and turning. The stage was absolutely perfect; a sky unbroken by clouds.

The two boys lay there on the beach side by side watching the sky, listening to the waves as the tide grew higher. Luckily, they rested far enough up the beach that the high tides wouldn't reach them. One turned to the other and said, "Axel, I'm full." Absolute wonder danced behind his tired eyes.

The other, Axel, felt a grin split his face, his dry skin stretching in ways his cheeks had grown tired of hours ago. He shifted his stare from the sky to gaze contentedly at his partner. "Oh yeah? Of what, Roxas?" he wondered in a tone that could only have been pure curiosity. Childlike interest played in his smile.

Roxas shrugged in the sand. "I don't know," he admitted. "It just feels like that's the only word I could use to describe it. I could use the word 'satisfied,' but I'm not sure that can cover it, either." He searched Axel's snake-green eyes that the night distorted into a phthalo green.

Axel hummed in reply, but didn't say anything. Instead, he looked back up at the stars. Had his lust for knowledge about life or stars ever reached this extremity before? He didn't know. Aridity had never been so prevalent in his mouth than now. He didn't know the secrets of life or if he would ever ponder them so profoundly ever again. He didn't know if he would get sucked into the tedium of all life's trivial matters. He didn't even know why exactly he knew so little or what he could be missing.

A sensation on his hand, which had been laying palm-down with his fingertips grazing the sand, broke him out of his thoughts. The blond had slowly and silently walked his hand over to the redhead's. Now, he rested his appendage on top of Axel's larger one. Immediately, but not abruptly, the redhead gently turned his hand over; and their digits interlocked like a zipper.

Of all the things Axel didn't know or was unsure of, this was one thing he understood and knew on all levels of his being—conscious, subconscious, and otherwise. The day's fullness of life, questions, and absolute wonder could only be shared with the one he exalted in the sole overly-romanticized corner of his mind. This one kid, Roxas, had single-handedly managed to steal his heart in one fell swoop and teach him about the simpler, more beautiful little pieces of life scattered all around that he'd never seen before. The blond had introduced to him a profound part of himself that he'd never known existed.

Before meeting Roxas, Axel didn't know that he could calm himself in his angriest of tirades. Before meeting Roxas, Axel thought it was normal to remain level-headed enough to count his partner's moans during throes of passion. Before meeting Roxas, Axel's insecurity played him like a fiddle and made his hair two shades duller. Before meeting Roxas, nothing in Axel's life ever seemed concrete or certain, but now he had a good idea of where he was headed and how things around him would change. Before meeting Roxas, Axel didn't realize how much he was missing out on.

Naturally, on a night like this with so much potential energy and swirling mystery in the air where absolutely nothing was certain or set in stone and confusion and inquisitiveness made his stomach lurch and his heart pound, Axel wouldn't have anyone else laying out next to him, holding his hand for dear life and knowing that whatever would happen, there was one sure thing in life, at least, and that was their unshakeable union.


	9. Stars

**IX. Stars**

Axel had always been the boy with stars in his eyes and better things on his mind. He only saw the things ahead of him: places he would go, people he would meet, things he would do. All this played like movies behind his eyes constantly over and over, but he never seemed to grow tired. He wanted to leave this small town more than anything else. He'd outgrown this town years ago and longed to spread his wings.

Roxas had always been helplessly in love with Axel. Day after day, he dreamed of hugging, kissing, holding the redhead. The redhead had this strange effect on him and his mass amount of determination attracted him like nothing else. That had sparked the blond's initial interest in him. As Roxas grew to be friends with Axel, though, his attraction only swelled. Every part of Axel interested him, even most of his bad habits. He'd never met anyone like Axel before and it excited him.

When the two first met, they slowly became closer, but not the way or the fashion Roxas had wanted. He wanted the redhead to take interest in him as well. He wanted the redhead to bring them closer and talk to him. But that didn't happen. Roxas always had to seek him out, and through his work alone, they became friends. The blond doubted that Axel even knew he was there. It didn't seem to make a difference to him. He never commented or asked about it when Roxas missed a day of school, he never asked for the blond's presence or invited him anywhere, and he never talked to Roxas about anything other than himself and his dreams.

It wasn't necessarily Axel's fault. He just didn't live in the now. The future held all his attention, and that hurt Roxas. He didn't mean anything to Axel, not even enough for the redhead to see him and realize his presence. He never even talked _to_ Roxas. He only talked _at _him with minor cues where the blond had to respond with 'yes' or 'no'. Literally _anyone_ could've replaced him and it wouldn't have mattered to Axel.

Pressure and depression built up over time and Roxas neared the end of his very long rope. He began noticing all the small things Axel did to invalidate his existence. He never called Roxas by name, opting to call him Blondie instead. He tuned out whenever Roxas tried to say something longer than two words. He never asked Roxas anything about himself. Eventually, the rage and hurt overwhelmed Roxas and he had to do something about it.

They were in Axel's tree house (Roxas always laughed at the thought of a 17 year old having a tree house) on a Friday. Night had long since fallen, so Axel watched the stars in the sky from a window carved out of the side of the tree house. Roxas watched him from one of the two bean bag chairs lying around. He sat there listlessly, not realizing that tonight would be the night he finally snapped. Neither of them had any idea of what was about to occur.

It all started simply enough. Axel began to rant about getting out of here and visiting the stars and kissing them good night every single night. Roxas listened to this mindlessly, but then Axel made a few missteps. He asked Roxas a question, calling him Blondie, and when Roxas tried to answer in more than a few words, the redhead continued talking, interrupting and ignoring him. All the rage came crashing down on Roxas.

Roxas shot up from his seat and rapidly approached the redhead. He grabbed Axel by the shoulder and spun him around so that they faced each other. Axel made a sound of confusion and knit his eyebrows together. "Axel!" Roxas seethed. "Look at me! Just look at me!" he yelled. When Axel tried to turn back around, Roxas stopped him. "Look at me, goddamn it! Look at me!"

"Why? What's this all about, Blondie?" he wondered. Even though he had asked a question, he trued to turn around once more to gaze at the stars.

"Blondie!? Do you even know my fucking name?" he demanded. "We've been friends for years and you don't even know my goddamn _name_! And you never even look at me! You don't even know what the fuck I look like!" Roxas's lungs burned, but he screamed anyway. Being so mild-mannered, his throat wasn't used to all this yelling.

"You seem upset," Axel noted.

"Upset? _**UPSET**_?!" Roxas shrieked. "What the fuck! I'm _screaming_ at you, Axel! _Screaming_. You don't know my name, you don't know what the fuck I look like, you don't even know how I—" And then Roxas lost his mind, but in a good way. Axel's lips covered his and well. Fucking _fireworks_. The kiss only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough to make the blond weak at the knees. "Huh…? What? Why…?" Roxas wondered incoherently. His face hurt from blushing so intensely.

Finally, Axel turned to face the stars again. He put a hand on Roxas's shoulder and made the blond face the stars, too. "You love me, don't you?" he asked very nonchalantly.

"Huh? How did you know?" Roxas wondered, having eyes only for Axel, who had eyes only for stars.

"Why?" he wondered after a long pause of ignoring the blond's questions. "Why would you fall in love with _me_?" Gently, he put his hands to the window and gripped the rough wood, feeling several loose, withering strands of wood under his fingertips. For some reason, even though he was looking at the stars, he seemed grounded on earth for the first time.

Roxas shrugged shyly. "I don't know. I just did, I guess." A moment passed and Roxas became irritated again. "And you never answered my question! Why did you even kiss me in the first place? Answer it! I have a right to know!"

Shrugging, Axel responded quickly, "To shut you up." But he didn't pause long enough for Roxas to respond with anger. Instead, he rested a hand Roxas's shoulder, the one furthest away from him. "Now, look at the stars. Look at them, Roxas. Don't you just see the future up there? See, there," Axel rested his head on Roxas's vacant shoulder to see the view from the shorter boy's perspective and pointed to a cluster of stars, "there's the place I'm going to live when I get older. You see it, right? Well, except, maybe it's where _you'll_ live when you get older. I think that's how it works. You see what you want because you want it badly enough. And from here, that little group of stars is in prime position to represent the earthly things you want in your life," he explained.

The proximity of the redhead, the fact that they were _touching_ (something that had never happened before), made Roxas feel flustered. Axel had also never explained what he saw when he looked up at the stars before. Roxas tried to follow the redhead's explanation. He described the places Roxas could look to see what he truly wanted and how the objects themselves changed for everyone.

"Now that I've explained it all to you, when you look at the place where your house is, what do you see?" Axel wondered, sounding raptly interested. He gazed at his blond companion intensely.

"Um," Roxas flushed pink for a moment, "I guess I see a house. But it's kind of small. It looks more like a shack on a beach or something, but it's not on the beach. It's in the suburbs and I think I can see a skyscraper in the background and there's a grassy lawn and flowers in window boxes. It looks cozy enough for a small family or something."

Axel released Roxas for a moment and stood up straight. He breathed in the night air and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them again and returned his hand to its place on Roxas's shoulder. He pulled the blond against his side. "You know, Roxas, and yes, I _do_ know your name, I've been wondering why a perfectly nice person like yourself would ever fall in love with me. And I could never figure it out. I tried to push you away, really, I did." Axel grinned a charismatic smile and looked down at the boy pressed against his side who stared back up at him in awe.

"I didn't want to fall in love. I thought it would tie me down and chain me to this place. So I tried to ignore you and avoid you so that you would leave. But you never did. You just kept following me. And I like that about you. You don't give up, Roxas, and I _love_ that. And I had this feeling we had the same vision of where we would end up and I didn't know if I was just stupid or if I was lovesick and just _hoping_ for the best. And I never told you about where exactly we would live but now," Axel paused for a long moment.

He gazed more deeply into Roxas's eyes and smiled at him.

Roxas's cheeks burned as he gazed up at this wonderful boy. He was completely entranced, loving everything about this moment.

"I thought that maybe if we saw something similar, then we would end up the same place eventually. And it turns out, we do. So now I know that no matter where we go or what we do with our lives, we'll end up together somewhere that isn't here. And now I know that being in love with you won't change that. And I hope it never does."

"Axel…" Roxas really didn't know what to say, so he decided to say what he'd been wanting to for a very long time. "I love you. You're my sky. And I've always loved you."

Axel blushed bright red, making Roxas smile. He'd never seen the redhead blush before. "R-roxas…"he whispered, "I guess you're kinda like my stars. If I'm your sky, I mean. But I mean, really I'm not." He kissed Roxas on the cheek despite his embarrassment. "And I've been watching the stars longer than I've even known what they were called."


	10. Planets

**X. Planets**

"Ahhh, it's good to see your beautiful face! I had the shittiest day ever, seriously," Axel said with a sigh of relief as he sank further into the depths of his overly-plush couch. His laptop sat on top of a pillow, which sat on top of his lap, and he smiled into the screen through his fatigue. Skype was open, displaying the bright-eyed blond smiling back at him.

"Yes, I am glad you came on. I was beginning to think you forgot about me!" the blond laughed. If their shitty webcams were better, maybe Axel would've been able to see the way Roxas blushed as he spoke.

"Psh, I could never forget about you! Especially with you and your family coming out to visit in _two_ days. God fucking shit, I am _excited_ to see you in the flesh. Au naturale. Right? Yeah? Good?" Axel wondered with a grin on his face. His cheeks hurt already from the sudden mass amount of smiling he experienced whenever he spoke with Roxas.

"No, no, no, never try to speak French again. You can't do it. You stupid American, capitalist pig!" Roxas barked back, laughing.

"Oh, _really_, Roxas? Is that how you want to play it?" the redhead wondered, tilting his head at the screen as if facing the blond down in a stand off. "Well, in case you'd like to know, you also have a semi _laissez-faire_ economy! And I simply can't wait to _rendezvous_ with you!"

The blond on the other end howled in horror and outrage. "Gah! My heart! My ears!" he whined. "So much American accent that it disgusts me! My nation is bleeding from its side now! Good work, Axel. You must be so proud!" After a few minutes of giggles and more banter things grew quiet and the both of them ended up just staring at each other. "Axel, I am excited to see you. Of course, my family is excited, too, but I can't wait… more? You know what I mean. I want to feel myself in your arms…"

"Yeah, I want to feel you in my arms too. I've been practicing my French to impress your family. I know they already love me, but now they'll love me even more once I speak to them in your guys' native language. Bonjour, sacré bleu, escargot and all that. You know, really good French."

Another person entered Roxas's room, Axel noticed. The person said something Axel couldn't understand, but he sounded upset. From pictures that he'd seen and even from talking to him a little, Axel knew it was Roxas's brother, Ventus. Despite not being twins, they were nearly identical, which boggled the redhead's mind. "Roxas! Qu'est-ce que tu fais? Tu dois commencer à faire tes valises!"

Roxas turned to face the person. "Oui, je sais, mais je parlait avec Axel. Je me suis assuré qu'il soit prêt pour nous. En plus, tu sais comment je suis," Roxas seemed to explain, Axel not really understanding anything aside from his name being spoken. "Il me manque toujours…"

Ventus sighed. "Oui, je comprends, mais tu dois être prêt! Si tu n'es pas prêt, tu ne peux pas y aller! Alors, tu ne pourras pas voir Axel! Ensuite, tu te plaindrais tout le temps quand nous retournons! Vas-y, vas-y!"

Roxas sighed sadly and replied, "D'accord." Ventus left as Roxas turned back to face the screen. "Sorry, but I have to go. I must pack for the trip. Well, I love you," he said shyly, turning red enough that even his webcam could detect it.

"Wait, wait! Say it in French!" Axel begged.

The blond rolled his eyes but smiled. "You are very silly, you know, Axel. Je t'aime." He blushed again.

Axel hummed contentedly. "I love you too, cutie. I'll see you in a couple of days." And with some more small goodbyes, Roxas ended the call, leaving Axel to stare at the textual conversation that Roxas and Axel could have had. Excitedly, Axel closed up his laptop and began the laborious, grueling task of cleaning the entire house to ready for the guests he would be having.

-A breakety break!-

Compulsively, Axel checked his watch every few seconds. He tapped his feet against the hard floor of the airport's baggage claim. Anticipation knotted his stomach in horrible ways and he felt as if he could pass out at any moment. To try to keep some form of stability and calm, the redhead crossed his arms over his chest, searching for stress-relief in that action alone.

"Excited much?" Axel's brother, Reno, asked with a grin on his face. Reno had come along because he and Axel lived together and he knew all about his relationship with Roxas. He was curious to meet the blond, too, and would be helping show his family America and some of its wonderful sights.

Axel scoffed in reply but was too nervous and excited to form a coherent reply.

Axel had been waiting for this moment, the moment he could finally meet Roxas, for a little over two years now. Now he finally had his chance to hear the blond's true voice and see how he walked and what his eyes looked like up close. And he would be able to run his hands through Roxas's blond, silky-looking hair and run his fingers over the boy's smooth-looking skin. Just the thoughts alone gave him chills.

Finally, after about 35 minutes of waiting around for Roxas and his family to appear, they really did appear. First came Roxas's brother, Ventus, who seemed to be blocking the path down the narrow escalator for Roxas, who appeared to want to enter the baggage claim as soon as possible. Behind them stood Roxas's parents, looking bright-eyed and very interested in their surroundings, if not a bit tired.

The moment Roxas and Axel's eyes connected, Axel felt weak at the knees. He didn't think it possible, but in person Roxas was even more beautiful than he'd ever looked in pictures and over their webcams. Immediately, he grew mousy and shy even though he didn't see the need to be. Roxas seemed to be feeling the same way.

When they finally got off the escalator, the Strife family picked their way through the crowd of people in the baggage claim to reach the two redheads. The Strife parents and Ventus introduced themselves with a perfectly normal handshake, but when Roxas said hello to Axel, he got up onto his tippy toes, pressed their cheeks together, and made a kissing sound. Before he could switch to the other side, Axel hastily pulled away in surprise, his face completely red.

When Axel hastily pulled away, Reno started laughing, the Strifes seemed surprised, and Roxas looked very guilty and sheepish. "Sorry! I forgot they don't do that here!" he blushed intensely, practically forcing Axel to ruffle his hair.

"It's okay, you just surprised me," the redhead grinned.

Roxas and Ventus's parents spoke with Reno and Axel as they retrieved their bags and finally started heading towards the parking lot. Ventus couldn't keep his eyes off their surroundings, staring at everything curiously. Unlike Ventus, Roxas just couldn't keep his eyes off Axel. It made the redhead feel self-conscious, but he didn't say anything about it.

After leaving the airport, Axel and Reno took drove the Strifes back to their home in Venice, California. The Strifes all stared everywhere as they drove, taking in the new environment. They dropped off their luggage and got their rooms all situated, and by the time that had been finished, night had fallen and Reno and Axel wondered what to serve their guests for dinner. Neither of them could cook, so they decided heating up a couple of frozen pizzas would have to suffice.

The Strifes seemed a little put off by it as well as the lack of order and system in the placement of their table set-up, but they accepted the conditions, promising to make the food for the remainder of their stay. They promised the two redheaded brothers that it was to pay them back for letting them stay at their house, but Axel had a feeling it was more for their own benefit. They didn't want to eat pre-made frozen foods. Axel understood and felt sheepish, so he promised to take them to a grocery store the next day to buy the necessary ingredients for whatever beautiful concoction they would cook up.

When it came time to really settle in to sleep, Reno would be sleeping on the couch to allow the Strife parents to use his bed, and Ventus and Roxas were to use their guest room. Thus ended the first night of their visit.

The next morning, Axel and Reno woke up at 5AM as usual to go running together to Venice Beach. When they returned, their guests seemed confused, as they had woken up to an empty house. Axel took them to the grocery store as promised and helped them locate oodles of ingredients and foods that seemed would last longer than the week they were to stay for. They assured the redhead that it was just enough, so he let it go. When they made breakfast shortly after returning, Axel learned that eggs and crepes made for a very delicious meal, more delicious than any meal he'd had in years.

For the next week, Axel and Reno showed the Strifes all the lovely landmarks and famous places they wanted to see and more. Axel and Roxas quickly fell into a lovey-dovey and playful relationship, which didn't surprise anyone at all. The two had been babbling about each other since the very first time they ever spoke on the internet to each other. Even though their relationship was unofficial, they knew that they were made for each other and as the days went on and as they grew closer, so did the time when Roxas and his family would have to return to France.

On the last day, Reno promised to take care of Roxas's family so that Axel could spend the last day alone with Roxas. Axel promised to make it up to his brother, but Reno refused. He just wanted to do something nice for his brother free of charge.

So on that last day, Axel took Roxas to hang out with some of his friends at Venice Beach. They all got along well, which didn't surprise Axel, and spent the day swimming in the ocean and splayed out on the beach with ice cream and various picnic-type foods. After that, they returned to the house and cuddled together in Axel's bed.

"So how did you like your stay?" the redhead wondered, kissing Roxas's forehead.

The blond sighed. "It was wonderful; like a completely different planet. The people in America are more open and friendly than the people in France. It is a nice change. At the same time, I don't understand much of the slang words that are used here. It will be sad to go home, but I am also happy to return."

Axel hummed in reply. Sadness overwhelmed him and he felt the sudden need to kiss Roxas, so he did. He'd kissed the blond several times before during his stay, but this time was different. During their time together, Axel had done his best not to force Roxas into having sex with him, but this was the final time they'd see each other for a long while, and even though Axel personally didn't believe in having sex after having known a person in the flesh for merely a week, but at the same time, it was now or never, so he was going for it.

Roxas responded positively to the deep kissing, and began running one hand through Axel's hair and the other feeling up his back under his shirt. He allowed the redhead to trail the kisses down to his neck, where he began nipping and sucking. "Ah," he sighed contentedly, "Axel, I have waited for this… I had a fear that you would not touch me."

In reply, Axel grinned. "Me too, but I didn't want to pressure you." He pinned Roxas to the bed, his knee wedged between the blond's legs and roughly against his crotch, making the boy groan. Axel smirked at the response before he continued to nip at the blond's neck.

"Ooh, Axel…" Roxas breathed. He buried his fingers within Axel's hair, tugged at the red mane so they could kiss, and wormed his free hand down to Axel's zipper.

The moment Roxas managed to dig through the denim and cloth boxers, everything went by in double-time, too fast for Axel to keep track of. He only remembered the feeling of Roxas's smooth skin under his rough fingers, the taste of his breath, and the sounds of skin slapping and the bed creaking underneath them. Already, it was over.

Axel lay on his back with Roxas curled up into a little ball on top of him, tucked neatly into the crook of his neck, blond hair tickling his chin. He smiled contentedly and hummed the rhythm of "We Are the Champions" by Queen as he gently stroked Roxas's naked side and back. Behind his closed eyelids, Axel saw the face of Roxas in the throes of pleasure and passion. An expression of absolute feeling. And Axel wouldn't soon forget that, if ever. Even when he'd first lost his virginity, it hadn't been _that_ memorable. But the moment he and Roxas became one entity, he knew he would _never_ forget it.

When he thought of the distance and the fact that he wouldn't get to hold the blond for a long time, a lump formed in his throat. When Axel first started talking with Roxas through the internet, he never in a million years would've guessed how hard he would fall in love with the boy. Even after he'd met Roxas and began talking to him on a daily basis, he had never considered how wonderful or how much of an impact seeing the blond would make on him.

In that moment of remembrance that Roxas would leave the following morning, Axel stopped stroking the blond and instead held him firmly against his chest with both arms. If he was leaving tomorrow, then Axel would get the most out of their time together. He couldn't really do much else. Just as sleep had its dreamy tendrils around Axel, the feeling of a thumb against his cheek brought him back to consciousness. His eyes fluttered open and he found Roxas leaning over him, staring intently at his face. "Hmm?" Axel asked.

"There was a tear. I wiped it away," Roxas explained. He leaned down and kissed the redhead's cheek. "I… I love you," the blond said afterwards, sounding choked up. "I love you very much."

"Me too," the older boy responded. "I love you, too." He pulled the blond against him and rocked the boy softly in his arms. "I'll miss you."

Roxas nodded and wrapped his arms around Axel. A few warm water droplets landed on Axel's chest the same way more warm tears landed in Roxas's hair.

-Breakey break!-

The next day, at 5AM, Axel and Reno drove the Strife family to LAX. They waited in traffic and spent close to an hour looking for parking and had to wait in an impossibly long line to get their bags and passports all checked and they waited for forty minutes in the terminal so that Axel and Roxas could spend as much time together as humanly possible. And then there were hugs and strong faces and broken hearts and a kiss goodbye and then there was the departure and the two groups of people waved goodbye for the last time. And then one party got on a 10 and a half hour flight to Paris, France, where they would then transfer to a flight from Paris to Nice which would take about an hour and a half. And the other party drove home to a strangely-empty house where the older brother would go back to sleep while the younger brother would lay in his bed and try not to miss his favorite blond in the world.

Of course, a few months later, Axel would get the opportunity to stay in Aix-en-Provence for a study abroad program and, which lay merely an hour away from Nice, Roxas's hometown. And then after his six month study-abroad program where he learned French fairly well, Roxas would gain a visa to work at a company in LA for two years and then eventually both would gain dual citizenship and float back and forth together every few years. But neither of them knew that as of yet, so while Axel sulked in his room alone in the dark, Roxas cried silently on the AirFrance plane with his brother offering him tissues every so often.


	11. Bought

**XI. Bought**

In all his years as a piece of shit on the bottom of society's shoes, Axel had done nearly every act considered immoral by the human race. He had had copious amounts of sex, gotten many women pregnant and then left, killed people, including a child by accident, raped both men and women, stolen from people's houses, tried every drug he could get his hands on, committed arson on more than one occasion, judged people with disabilities, and even taken candy from a baby. All Axel wanted to do was fuck shit up as badly as he could because he didn't see any other point to living.

Being the son of a lawful, evil businessman, Axel had something close to diplomatic immunity. His father admired his 'fuck everything and everyone' attitude, which stemmed from his own IDGAF attitude. In Axel's mind, his father was the equivalent of God and even though he disregarded every single authority figure ever presented in his life, his father's words were law. Of course, he never told Axel what to do, just gave him tidbits of tips; things people should never tell their children, like how to best hide signs of being inebriated or how to best hide the bodies of people he'd killed.

There was on thing, though, one thing Axel had never done, and he was about ready to tackle it: fucking a prostitute. Though Axel knew prostitutes were only supposed to be used for a single night, he wanted a more permanent prostitute. He didn't want to be a pimp because he didn't want to put in the effort of keeping track of all the variables involved, he just wanted a gorgeous person that he could count on for a good fuck whenever he wanted. So he asked his daddy to set up some form of selection of prostitutes for sale for good. Of course, his father obliged and pulled together a screening, publishing an offer on the black market for the most beautiful prostitute for sale. Any interested had to report with their merchandise to one of his five-star restaurants where screenings would occur and Axel would choose his favorite.

And so the process went underway and the pimps all gathered their prostitutes, male and female. First, there would be an introduction of each item of merchandise where the products would present themselves on the cabaret's stage. As the prostitutes flaunted their assets uncomfortably on the stage at the demand of their pimp, Axel and his father took notes of each piece of meat.

Then there was the personality portion of the screening. Despite the fact that they were prostitutes, Axel didn't want some boring whore that he had to listen to bark at him or shy away from him. He wanted someone confident and with the same IDGAF attitude as him. And he found what he wanted; a gorgeous piece of ass by the name of Roxas.

So that night, after the proceedings finished up and the pimps packed away their merchandise and left, Axel consummated his purchase by making an absolute mess of his newly purchased prostitute. All throughout the clumsily passionate thrusting and wordless groans of pleasure, Roxas kept his sapphire eyes trained on Axel's eyes, which the redhead admired.

After the deed was done, Axel put a hand to Roxas's face and stroked his cheek with his thumb. The two lay on their sides facing each other, but not touching aside from Axel's hand on the blond's face. "Hey, baby, how was your first night? Enjoy yourself?"

Roxas's eyes were narrowed and he smirked at the redhead. His eyebrow twitched as he gently pressed his hand against Axel's, making the redhead lay his hand flat on his cheek. "More than I expected. I never expected that _I_ would be your choice. I thought you were just gonna be a predictable motherfucker and take the first bitch that had a nice rack."

"Oh yeah?" the redhead wondered.

"Yeah. But I guess I should be thanking you, my new master, for ditching me out of that hellhole. It was fucking terrible in that brothel. I don't mind the sex or even the torture, but that place was disgusting. Don't be surprised if you have AIDS the next time you get screened for STDs." Maybe it was the way Roxas spoke, or the way he looked at Axel with some sort of amused high-handedness, as if he was above Axel despite his being a prostitute. Whatever it was, Axel fell hard for this little son of a bitch after these words tumbled from his mouth.

Axel grinned at the blond and his cheeks burned in a way they never really had. His empty torso filled with feeling in a way that he was inexperienced with. With this intense new emotion, Axel felt the need to crush this little man lying in bed with him. He grabbed the blond by the neck and squeezed as he roughly kissed him.

Surprisingly, Roxas didn't react in a bad way. Due to his years of sexual abuse, he'd grown used to such things and simply kissed back, allowing Axel to bite his lips so hard that they bled. When the redhead released the blond, his face faded back to its regular color instead of the bluish tint it had taken on. "Aw, don't tell me, someone feels threatened?" Roxas teased with a grinned. "It's okay," he continued, running a hand down Axel's heaving bare chest due to his rapid breathing, "I know I'm so perfect and unaffected you just want to fuck me up. It gives you all these feelings you never knew you had."

The redhead growled and shoved the blond off of the bed, causing him to hit his head against the nightstand. "What the fuck ever." And with that, he flipped over to face the other side of the room.

Roxas began laughing from his place on the floor. "It's okay, Axel, I like you, too."

And they lived happily ever after.


	12. Sold

"I don't know why I let you talk me into this," Axel complained as he trudged through their county's humane society. He held Roxas's hand loosely, not sure if he even deserved human contact at this point. He didn't want to be here, but he'd been guilted into letting Roxas have his way

"Oh relax, Axel," we're just looking at the puppies. "Just enjoy their cute little faces. Aww! Look at that one!" the blond cooed as he pointed to one of the pens that held a fluffy dog. He released his boyfriend's hand so he could approach the pen and lock his fingers in the links of the chain-link fence. "So cute!"

Axel cringed and Roxas knew it was because the redhead didn't like sharing Roxas's attention with anyone or anything, dogs included. He got jealous way too easily and his over-protectiveness bothered Roxas to an extent. It stemmed from Axel's previous relationships where he'd been cheated on multiple times, but it bothered Roxas still. Why would he cheat on Axel with a dog? It didn't make sense.

"Don't you think it's cute?" Roxas wondered, though he probably shouldn't have.

"Not nearly as cute as you," the redhead responded. He just wanted this day to be over already, Roxas could tell from his restless behavior. The redhead constantly crossed and uncrossed his arms and shuffled his feet and ran his fingers through his hair way more than usual. In many ways, Axel almost seemed as if he belonged here, or like he was amongst his own kind.

They continued on through the humane society and Roxas swooned over the cuteness of all the animals while Axel grew more uncomfortable and on edge. This spiked when Roxas spotted a border collie that somehow reminded him much of Axel. This particular dog had reddish brown fur and an attitude that resembled Axel better than Roxas could even comprehend. The dog was lying down with its head in its paws, sadly watching all passersby, but doing nothing to garner attention. That drew Roxas to him.

As he approached the enclosure, Roxas didn't say a word. There were a few reasons for this; he didn't want to upset Axel anymore and he felt guilty already for making the redhead come with him, but mostly, he was so shocked at the resemblance in appearance and vibes he got from the dog to that of Axel. He stared at the dog for a long while before his eyes trailed over to the clipboard hanging from the chain-link fence that listed his information.

In neat, clean, almost sarcastic print, it listed the dog's sex, male, his age, around three years old, his health conditions, in good health, his status in the animal shelter, available for adoption, and his euthanization date, tomorrow. That made Roxas's heart skip a beat. A feeling of protectiveness overwhelmed Roxas and he felt that he had to save this dog in order to save Axel. He couldn't let any part of Axel die. Warily, Roxas turned to face Axel, staring at him worriedly.

Axel furrowed his brows and crossed his arms. "What is it?" he demanded. When he received no response, he looked worried to and then stood akimbo. "What?!" he demanded again. And when he received no response again, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and angrily looked away.

"I'm getting this dog," Roxas said simply, turning back around to face the dog.

"What? But you promised me!" Axel argued. He angrily approached the cage to peer in. "What's so great about this fucking son of a bitch?"

Silently and gently, Roxas took Axel's hand in his, making the redhead look at him with a confused look on his face. "He reminds me of you. And he's gonna be killed tomorrow if he's not adopted. I can't let you die," he explained. "Now," he gently tugged Axel along and turned in the direction of the main office, "let's go buy him."

And at the end of the day, the dog, named Axel Jr. by the extra-creative Roxas, wagged his tail as he went to sleep that night with a 'Sold' sign hanging from his cage. Axel and Roxas would pick him up tomorrow so he could rest the night after received the core vaccinations necessary for optimum health as well as booster shots from the shelter's vets.


	13. Water

"Come on, let's go in!" Roxas begged his boyfriend, attempting to tug the redhead from his seat on the sandy towel. "Please?" He gazed at Axel with his cutest version of his puppy dog eyes that he could muster up and the redhead started groaning.

"Roxas, I don't want to! You know how much I hate the water… Come on, kid, have a heart," Axel whined. He turned over onto his stomach, forcing the blond to relinquish his leg. "Isn't it enough that I let you walk around shirtless for all to see? Come on, Roxas, don't add insult to injury by splashing around in the water and getting all wet and acting all cute…"

Roxas grumbled and sat on top of Axel's back, making sure to put his full weight on him. "But we're at the _beach_. Come on, we can splash around _together_ so that way you get to see me too! Come on! Please, please, please?" Deciding to pull out the big guns, Roxas lay down on top of Axel with his bare stomach against his boyfriend's bare back and rested his hands on the older boy's shoulders. He placed his mouth next to Axel's ears. Then, in his saddest, most heartbroken voice, he asked, "Don't you even love me anymore?"

Axel groaned louder. "Roxas, that's totally unfair! How can you sleep at night knowing you do this to me?" Still, he sat up, which caused Roxas to fall wayside into the warm sand. "Come on, you asshole, let's go in the goddamn water," he grumbled reluctantly as he began making his way down to the surf.

Roxas jumped to his feet and followed the redhead, grabbing his hand and interlocking their fingers. "I'll have you know that I sleep very well at night, thank you." They paused at the water's edge, Axel looking apprehensive. "I promise to compensate you later. You can do whatever you want to me and I won't cry foul. So all the head you want, consider it done and every drop of cum swallowed. Since I'm gonna make you go in anyway, you might as well reap the benefits."

Nodding and sighing, Axel stepped into the shallow water that rushed up the shore with every wave. He sucked in air through his clenched teeth. "Oh god, Roxas, you fucking owe me so much for this…" he hissed as the couple made their way into deeper water. It came up to the redhead's knees now and his pale skin was absolutely covered in goosebumps.

Impatient with Axel's slow pace, a wolfish grin unfurled on Roxas's face and he shoved the redhead the rest of the way into the water. Completely unprepared, Axel fell all in the water, getting completely drenched. When the redhead surfaced, all of his hair clung to his back, neck, and shoulders and he sputtered for air, hastily wiping salt water out of his eyes. He shivered erratically and glowered at his blond boyfriend for a moment before flipping the boy off and angrily storming back onto shore.

"Fuck you, Roxas, I'm done," the redhead seethed back through his chattering teeth.

"No, no, wait!" Roxas called after him, trying to contain his giggles. He tried to grab hold of Axel's hand again, but the redhead shoved him away. "Baby, come _on_, you know I didn't mean it! It was just too convenient!" the blond tried to convince him. His attempts were futile, he knew, but Axel would be even more pissed if he didn't put in the effort to at least try to mend things between them.

Once on land, Axel tore up the beach, snatched up his beach bag, made sure to leave Roxas's towel lying on the sand, proceeded to his car, locked Roxas out, and began to dry off in the backseat of his car whilst Roxas knocked on the windows and doors of the vehicle, begging for forgiveness and entrance into the car. Axel flipped him the bird occasionally as he dried himself off and then settled into the driver's seat when he was satisfied.

Roxas was still trying not to laugh at this point. He honestly thought angry Axel was absolutely _hilarious_. Plus, the redhead always forgave him, which made it hard for him not to make fun of the redhead and harm him occasionally. The blond smiled as he watched Axel sit in the front seat pondering over whether he should let the younger boy into the car or not. Of course, the outcome never changed. Axel always forgave him at the cost of Roxas's dignity. Honestly, though, Roxas didn't mind handing over his dignity for the redhead.

The sound of doors unlocking clicked, and Roxas made sure to yank the door open before Axel locked it again, as he sometimes did when angry. "I'm sorry, b—"

"Shut your mouth, bitch," Axel growled at him. He turned on the car and angrily drove the two of them back into society and suburban neighborhoods.

Axel usually tended to be fairly predictable, so Roxas assumed that they would go back to the redhead's house and Axel would make him do sexual things he normally wouldn't. One can imagine the blond's surprise when Axel pulled up in front of Roxas's house and ordered him to get out of the car. And now Roxas grew scared. "But, Axel—"

"Get the fuck out of my car or else I'll _make_ you get out," the redhead threatened, completely serious. He bared his teeth at the blond in a way that terrified him.

"Um," Roxas replied as he hastily grabbed his towel and opened the door. He hurried out onto the sidewalk just beside his driveway. "Axel, look, I'm—" But Axel was gone. He tore off down the street and disappeared, leaving Roxas alone in the middle of the day in front of his house. Shocked, he was completely unable to move, so he stood there for a moment trying to comprehend what had just happened. Once the shock lessened, he continued numbly on into his house where he would sit and consider what he had just done and the consequences of his actions.

Later that night, Roxas would receive a call from Axel, curtly informing him that he needed a break from the blond. He told him that he would be by the next day to drop off all the things Roxas had given him and left at his house and to take back all the things Axel had given the blond and left at the blond's house. And with that, he bade Roxas goodbye, leaving the blond to hope that this was merely a riptide in the vast ocean he'd often considered their relationship to be and that like the water in the ocean, they would ebb and flow apart and together continuously even after this all blew over.


	14. Fire

Axel had always held an affinity for fire in his dried-out heart. It called to him in a profound way that nothing ever had before. Its volatile and inconsistent nature reminded him much of himself, and he liked that. It made him feel like he wasn't so alone. So for the entirety of his life fire remained his only friend and he accepted that. He and fire had a past together and had more similarities than simply their nature and inconsistency. They had similar coloring and he lost count of how many times people had told him that his hair look liked fire. People thought he dyed it, but his insanely red hair was natural. He also tended to hurt people around him if they didn't know how to handle or contain him, and he left marks when people didn't do things his way.

The redhead swore he had been born of fire and would die of fire at the end of his life. He wanted to die surrounded by the only thing that truly understood him. He had never considered that a person, another human being, something that wasn't fire, could ever understand him, or even try to. He had never considered the fact that the only being capable of ever understanding him, the only living thing, _wouldn't_ surround him in his time of death.

At some point during his hectic, erratic life, Axel became obsessed with coffee and coffee shops. Some of his most vivid memories took place in such establishments, memories that meant nothing to everyone else, but meant the world to him. People just didn't perceive their surroundings or situations the way he did. That set him apart from the crowd the most. Anyway, Axel found himself spending a lot of time in coffee shops at some point in his life. It was the peak of his coffee craze, and he spent nearly every moment he could sitting in this horridly ugly, green lounge chair in his favorite coffee shop that he didn't know the actual name of, so he called it 'Skeet Coffee.' The name had many reasons behind it, but that isn't important.

Axel sat in the chair every time he had the opportunity to sit down and enjoy his coffee for longer than ten minutes. Mostly, it was because a fireplace lay across from it and he could feel the heat emanate from the beauteous creation. He would sit there and drink and sit and drink and sometimes he brought in his laptop like the pretentious douche people knew him as, and got his work done here. Living in an apartment, he didn't have access to a fireplace there, and he always thought better with heat flowing through him. So he did work here and dreamed here and explored the inner facets of his mind here. Never in a million years would he ever have expected to meet the one person to show genuine interest and desire to understand him here.

"Hey, jerk-off, are you done reading the classifieds yet?" a voice called to him from beyond the large newspaper covering his face.

"Huh?" Axel lowered the newspaper to look at the stranger asking very nicely for the thing. It surprised him a little when he saw that the person calling him 'jerk-off' looked no older than 17. Now, Axel had never been very traditional (obviously), but he didn't expect that a complete stranger he'd never seen before to call him such a rude name. Feeling weird about talking to an under-aged-looking kid, Axel tucked the newspaper under his arm, grabbed his coffee, and got up to walk away, intent on not giving the paper to the kid. It was _his_ paper, after all. He'd paid $1.50 for this paper and it was his damn it.

"Hey, hey, hey! Hold up, bub!" the blond boy called after him, grabbing him by the arm.

To Axel's surprise, this kid's hand had a surprisingly hold on the redhead and it somehow hurt him. He himself had never been very insecure at the age this boy looked, but he didn't know anyone else when he'd been that age who had the balls to grab onto an intimidating stranger as easily as if they were friends. Axel took a long look at the kid, sipped from his coffee and asked disinterestedly, "What?"

"Classifieds. Gimme." The blond reached for the paper, but Axel dodged his hand. "Come on, don't be an asshat. Give me the goddamn paper!"

"Get your own, asshole," Axel snorted. Then he wrenched himself out of the blond's hold and exited the coffee shop. He travelled to his apartment a little faster than he normally would because the blond boy persisted and followed him. To his displeasure, the kid managed to follow him all the way back to his apartment.

Extremely irritated by the time they reached Axel's apartment, the redhead decided to give this kid a piece of his mind before fleeing into his house where this stupid kid wouldn't be able to follow him. Sadly, Axel's rage clouded his common sense, and he unlocked and opened the door before turning to the blond. Of course, the kid just _had_ to take advantage of that.

Brusquely, the kid grabbed Axel roughly by the neck, got up onto the tips of his toes, and kissed the redhead full on the lips. Perhaps it was the roughness of the kiss or the fact that the blond shoved Axel into his apartment and followed along behind him, slamming the door after entering, but the contact just hurt. The boy took the coffee and newspaper out of the stunned and numb Axel's hands and set them down on the table the redhead usually placed his keys on next to the door. Then, he grabbed Axel by the wrist and roughly yanked the taller boy over to the couch laying there in the living room. He managed to push the redhead down onto the couch and climb on top before it finally registered in Axel's mind what exactly was happening.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the fuck do you think you're doing, kid?" Axel demanded. "Don't you know I can get in trouble for messing around with a minor? I didn't even fucking _want_ to kiss you!" The redhead shoved the blond off of him and onto the carpeted floors. "Kids your age should be in school, anyway."

The blond scoffed. "I'm 26, thank you very much, asshole. I'm a man, so this is all cool. Now lay still and let me play with you." And the blond once again tried to climb on top of Axel, but found himself on his butt on the carpet yet again.

"That's not even the issue here! Go away, I don't want you here!" Axel barked at him. "I can call the cops, you know."

"And I can call the pizza delivery guy. Who do you think they'll believe? You fucking let me in here. And like you've probably noticed, I look pretty damn young. I could just say that you abducted me. So who would they believe? Me, the high school boy that looks like he attends church every Sunday with his God-fearing parents or you, the guy that looks like he doesn't ever use his goddamn blinkers just for the purpose of pissing everyone off?" Roxas made good points, Axel had to admit.

"Why are you even here?" Axel demanded, enraged at this point. "And you better answer quickly. I have reservations about hitting stupid kids, but I have nothing against hitting smartass adults."

The blond plopped himself onto the couch next to Axel and crossed his legs as if he owned the joint. "Just call me water. And let's just say opposites attract."

"Call you 'water'? What the fuck? What's your _name_ kid?"

The boy rolled his eyes. "Just like I'd expect from you. Mystery isn't exactly your forte. Whatever, the name's Roxas. And I already know yours, 'Axel Nonfat Chai Latte.' And before you even ask, I'll just tell you, I've never seen you before today and when I did, I knew right away that I'm sleeping here tonight. So, oblige me. I'll compensate you. I can give good head."

"Okay, you're just fucking creepy, and no, I doubt I'll be needing your services," Axel retorted in reply. He couldn't believe the gall of this little shit. Never in his life had he met someone so irritating. But to some degree, he liked it. Just like acquired tastes. It was different, but did he honestly dislike it? Or perhaps he just had to grow used to it?

"Sweet, so I'll be staying here for free, then." Roxas smiled for the first time during this entire altercation, which knocked the wind out of Axel. Why did this kid have to be so cute at 26 years old? Not that 26 was old, but he was _cute_. Like, puppy cute.

Axel gave up arguing with Roxas, and when that happened, the blond told him his situation. He'd just gotten laid off after a promised raise in a new city, this city, but when he arrived, they'd already given the position to someone else. And when he went back to his hotel to gather his belongings to go, he decided to go get a cup of coffee to calm himself and relax for a moment. The story turned into a rant about how fucking stupid and unnecessarily mean it was of the company to tell him he had gotten a promotion only to make him leave home and find that he really wasn't getting the job.

Quickly, Axel found himself enraptured in the way the blond spoke. He was so eloquent and flowing with his speech that he found it difficult to understand why a company would willingly throw away such charisma. The redhead found himself getting caught up in all the little details about the boy, like how he could never look at anything for longer than five seconds and how he avoided looking at Axel's face entirely. The closest he got to looking at the redhead was when he stared at his left ear momentarily. And Roxas was so narcissistic and self-absorbed that the redhead couldn't stop listening. He'd never met anyone like the blond before. It was like Roxas extinguished his fiery personality.

Roxas stayed with Axel for about a week before returning to his hometown, which he'd never mentioned the name of. And just like that, the one person Axel thought he connected with more than any other human being on earth was gone. He tried to track Roxas, but he could never find the kid. And he went crazy in his loneliness, regarding Roxas as the one who got away in every sense of the phrase. So when he died, Roxas wasn't there. Maybe he was at the cremation service, or so Axel had hoped would happen when he died, but it pained him to think that, no, Roxas wouldn't be there. So, he died surrounded by his friend, fire. And then fire immortalized him as particles of dust and ash to float about the earth.


	15. Freedom

People always said the hills in the distance sang in their majesty and that the birds all flocked there to roost to better hear the songs. No one had ever ventured through the hills without returning until years later. The townspeople warned their children not to go there because, as a result of their stunning beauty, they swallowed children and spat them out years later as unhappy adults that would soon leave town and disappear. Of course, most citizens stayed in town, intent on keeping up their 'born here, die here' mentality. It ran through their inbred genes like diseases.

Roxas had many diseases as a result of this inbreeding, but none of them physical. Instead, he suffered from ostracization and bullying. More than that, he suffered from watching all the people he'd grown up with and all the adults who'd raised him drowning in their own ignorance and stupidity. He wanted more than anything to taste big city air and hear big city sounds fuck big city prostitutes. He never told anyone, keeping it inside because when he'd brought up the idea of moving out to see the city sights, his parents laughed at him and told him that wasn't his future. But he knew it was and he knew they were wrong.

All his life, Roxas struggled and questioned this mentality. How could everything he wanted in life be so wrong? How could it be wrong when he stayed awake at night _feeling_ the air of the big city chilling his bones and giving him goosebumps? How could it be wrong when he felt the grime of the stair rails under his fingers every time he lifted a pencil? How could it be so wrong when he fucking _heard_ the hills calling his name? How could all the lovely images that played behind his eyes be _wrong_? How, how, how?

And at first, he thought that _he_ had the problem. And he thought _he_ was backward and fucked in the head and ignorant and stupid and he wondered and wondered why _him_ and he could never figure it out. And he realized _they_ were mistaken. And _they_ were wrong. Oh, wrong, wrong, wrong, so very _wrong_. And he got angry, enraged, positively _fuming_ silently inside, taking all the insults people foisted upon him. Taking all the negativity and bullshit people fed him, but he never swallowed it like they wanted him to. He kept that shit on his tongue and in his mouth. One day, he'd have collected enough shit to put a cow farm to shame.

During his struggle, he noticed the shy kid in his school, Axel, watching him. Not obsessively, but in a way they Roxas knew he wasn't watching anyone else. In a way he knew Axel didn't give a single fuck about anyone else in the school. And though the kid was shy, it didn't mean he didn't feel, and Roxas knew what it was like. He knew Axel hated _everyone_ but him. He knew Axel saw through the bullshit of their small town and the ignorance and stupidity that festered there like rotting meat. But the kid was too shy to approach Roxas and talk to him. No, Roxas knew the kid revered him like no one else. So Roxas kept an eye on Axel and made sure to show off in front of the redhead whenever they were in the same room. He wanted to inspire the taller boy to be strong and bold when he felt the need to be.

As Roxas's struggle raged on into his final year of high school, he found himself thinking of the singing hills more and more often. He imagined himself with a backpack on and a shoulder bag slung over his body walking towards and past the hills with Axel at his side. He imagined himself kissing the redhead in freedom of the hills and whatever lay beyond just because he could. Just because he had the freedom to. And he imagined their campfires at night being filled with lovely silence or maybe with liberating screams or maybe truth like milk and honey or perhaps barking laughter that hurt due to inexperience with the phenomenon.

Days passed and Roxas's visions became clearer and clearer and more and more vivid. And as days passed, the collection of shit Roxas had been managing for the whole of his life finally looked about ready to fall over. And he was close to the edge. So close that he could _taste_ the tall, ownerless grass and the dew that collected on the wildflowers of the hills in the morning. And really, he only needed one more push. He'd had his bags packed for almost a month now. It was October and school had just started and it was his senior year, but his shit grades throughout his four years of incarceration would keep him from any form of higher education other than the local "college" or even the job training to immediately become part of the town's labor force. But he didn't want that. No. He was ready to make like a banana and split. He was ready to make like a tree and leave. He was ready to make like a rock and roll.

So there Roxas sat with his mother and father eating dinner at the dinner table like always. The small TV in the kitchen flickered in the lowlight and played a movie, holding their attention. It was just a small thing, really. Roxas's father made an offhand remark about how a kid in real life would never be able to overcome all the obstacles a particular character did in the movie. He said he ought to return home to his momma and work to support her. Roxas's mom agreed and they laughed at the ridiculousness of the scenario. And that was the last straw.

After dinner, Roxas very calmly went up to his room, grabbed up his backpack and shoulder bag, snuck out the window of his room, jogged over to Axel's house, climbed the tree conveniently located next to Axel's room's window (yes the blond had stalked the redhead enough to know which room was his), knocked on the window, and waited.

Within moments, the window shakily opened up and Axel was there looking through the window. He seemed surprised to see Roxas, which wasn't shocking, and he gasped just loud enough for Roxas to hear.

"Axel, hey, how are ya?" Roxas wondered, grinning. The shocked, scared, shy look on Axel's face made him want to laugh. Even though Axel was taller and as a whole more masculine than he, he sure was bashful.

"R-roxas…?" Axel seemed scared to even say his name. "Why are you here?" he wondered.

"Come on, toots, we're skippin' town. Get your shit together and come on," the blond informed him.

"W-what?" the redhead was confused.

With a sigh, Roxas climbed into the redhead's room so that he wasn't just balancing on the tree outside. He gazed up at the redhead and smiled at the boy. Roxas got the overwhelming feeling that he should've done this ages ago. "Get a backpack and pack'er up. We're leavin'. I can't take this shithole anymore and I know you can't either. So let's stop playin' around and go."

Axel still seemed unconvinced and still shocked that Roxas was even here invading his own personal space. He blushed like strawberries and tomatoes and everything juicy. He groaned hungrily as he stared down at the blond.

Roxas knew Axel wanted to go and he knew the redhead wanted to be with him. But he was scared. "What do you think they're gonna do? Call the police? They hate us anyway, Axel. I know you want to go, baby, and I know it hurts to think that I'll go without you, but I promise you, this is the last chance. I can't stick around any longer. And this is your last chance to go with me. This is the last chance for you to come along and see _everything_. We can go to the big city and we can learn and grow and explore. And we can be free and we can be _ourselves_. And you don't have to be all shy and bashful anymore. We can be _free_, Axel. _Free_!" Roxas took the redhead's hands into his. "And I'll love you like I've been wanting to ever since you started watchin' me. And we'll be happy."

And Axel's face matched his hair. He looked down at their hands for a moment before pulling his away to cover his face. Gosh, he was so shy. But he nodded. And he packed up his things slowly and methodically. And they left together down the tree outside his window. And they were off.

They reached the hills by morning and collapsed in exhaustion. But when they woke up in the hills, the winds made the grasses around them dance in the cool afternoon sun. And the clouds dotted the blue sky where birds occasionally flew. Roxas and Axel watched all this together on their backs, staring up at the sky.

Axel screamed, long and loud and very suddenly. He scared the shit out of Roxas for a moment, but after the blond realized there was nothing wrong with the redhead, he joined the redhead in his screaming. They screamed until their throats didn't allow them to scream anymore. The air had changed Axel so suddenly and Roxas loved it. The redhead kissed him until their lips were bruised and their inexperienced lips finally learned how to properly kiss another human being.

After their screams had stopped and as they tried desperately to kiss one another, the sound Roxas had been waiting for settled all around them. From the chirping of the birds to the buzzing of the occasional bee, freedom sang in those hills. And suddenly, the truth of the hills was revealed to Roxas as he kissed this insanely shy, yet equally as hot redhead. People only came back from the hills years after leaving because everything outside was so _wonderful_. Even poverty wasn't as bad as living in that town. The only reason anyone would ever return was to visit family, but they'd leave again soon. They always did.

So Roxas and Axel fulfilled their self-prophesied destiny and explored and learned together, they did return to their town to visit about a decade later to learn that nothing had really changed. They returned to the world of freedom a week later and lived and loved the way they'd always wanted.


End file.
